It was originally thought the Gertboard would launch alongside the Raspberry Pi, but that clearly didn’t happen. With so many people still waiting for the PC to arrive though, delaying the Gertboard makes little difference, although the board will certainly be in high demand once it becomes available.

Where as the Raspberry Pi offers up a fully functional PC, the Gertboard extends it to allow you to power motors, flash a set of LEDs, or hook up any number of different sensors. The video above shows off revision 2 of the Gertboard, and some of the functions it will offer.

The board you see is actually the final design, so this is what you will be receiving in the post. However, unlike the Raspberry Pi it will come in kit form, meaning there is some soldering involved before it can be used.

The Gertboard has been updated since we first saw it. For one, a number of components have been combined on to a single integrated circuit meaning one component to solder instead of several. The PIC microcontroller has been replaced for a chip that offers better compatibility with Arduino, two input buttons have been added, and there’s two new chips included for analog-digital, and digital-analog conversions.

We still don’t know the price or the release date of the Gertboard. I’m hoping the Foundation will be better able to keep up with demand when it does see a release.